Bill Clinton, Barack Obama share admiration for Ruth Bader Ginsburg

Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
(Image credit: NICHOLAS KAMM/AFP via Getty Images)

There has been no shortage of current and former American politicians on both sides of the aisle expressing their admiration for the late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, including the last two Democratic presidents.

In a statement, former President Barack Obama called Ginsburg a "warrior for gender equality" who "helped us see that discrimination on the basis of sex isn't about an abstract ideal of equality; that it doesn't only harm women; that it has real consequences for all of us." Obama also weighed in on the possibility of the Republican-led Senate fast-tracking the confirmation of Ginsburg's replacement before the election, suggesting that Ginsburg herself would want her legacy to be honored by the Senate sticking to the precedent it set in 2016 when the GOP blocked Obama's nomination of Merrick Garland because it was an election year. (Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said 2020 is different because the president and Senate majority are of the same party.)

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Tim O'Donnell

Tim is a staff writer at The Week and has contributed to Bedford and Bowery and The New York Transatlantic. He is a graduate of Occidental College and NYU's journalism school. Tim enjoys writing about baseball, Europe, and extinct megafauna. He lives in New York City.